Archive of ‘Dessert’ category

Once again- this is NOT my recipe. Maybe one day I’ll concoct my own recipes for the videos, but at the moment I’m having a ton of fun making other people’s recipes for these videos so that’s what I’m sticking with for now.

This is one I’ve seen a billion and a half times on Pinterest. They looked so easy and I loved the clever factor, plus y’all know by now how much I love stuffing food things in other food things. Clearly this was a winner in my book.

I used this recipe from Nutmeg Nanny. You should stop by and check out the rest of her recipes, because they all look fantastic.

So here’s the deal, party people, and I have a feeling you might not completely believe me when I tell you this due to the title of this post BUT I’ve pretty much eliminated junk food from my diet.

Seriously, though.

No junk food, no sweets, lots of veggies and pure eating.

I’m even exercising on a daily basis, switching between running and yoga.

I even ran a 5K yesterday!! My first ever! Here I am with my friend Justine. Her outfit was clearly way superior to my get-up.

Justine looks so fancy because it was the first (to San Francisco) Love Em or Leave Em Valentines Dash and it was so much fun. I’ve already signed up for my next 5K with my boyfriend taking place in March in NYC.

Now with all that said, you might be wondering what the eff is up with this post. If I’m riding away so fast and awesome on my high-horse, what’s with this crazy ass recipe?

I believe in cheat days. For those of you who aren’t familiar with a cheat day, cheat days are the one day a week you can eat pretty much whatever you want (you know, in moderation or whatever). And since Kat and I both swore off junk food, we decided to coordinate our cheat days. Specifically to blog cooking/shooting days.

We both didn’t have any junk food for the month of January and just recently started incorporating cheat days into the weekly schedule. And don’t worry- I have some of my favorite healthy recipes backlogged who knows where on my computer to post, but since it’s almost Valentine’s day, I thought I’d do something a little more themed.

The main concept for this recipe was born out of a need to save time. We get one cheat day a week to eat treats. One. I don’t have time to eat a cookie AND a cupcake. BOOM. COMBINED. You’re welcome.

Let’s get to this ridiculously lengthy but well worth-it recipe.(more…)

This was something my boyfriend had been pushing me to do for a while but I was hesitant because I’m not entirely too eager to see and/or hear myself talk on video. Hearing one’s own voice on recording is always traumatizing and I wanted to spare my poor readers from that sure-to-be-horror.

You’re welcome, by the way.

But, he convinced me we could do it in a way where the most anyone would see are my slightly frightening hands.

So we took one of our favorite recipes, and decided to shoot it! And I totally fell in love with it, so don’t fret, this will not be the last of the video recipe!

Just to clarify- this is not my recipe. This is the recipe from Steve Tarpin, the owner of Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pies, a shop found in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

ALSO: Since the eggs in the recipe are never cooked, make sure to buy pasteurized eggs. You can also pasteurize your own eggs, google will show you the way on that one.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas/Channukah/Kwanzaa/Festivus/whatever else you may celebrate.

Mine was lovely as always. My pops woke up early and began cooking the turkey, fresh cranberry sauce, stuffing and baked apples with fresh whipped cream (my aunt always brings the mashed potatoes and green beans). I watched Indiana Jones with the cat and when my brother finally woke up we had our gift exchange. I got a new set of pots and Wusthof knives. It. Was. Incredible.

Then the whole family came over. We ate dinner, opened more presents and then went and saw “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”.

Not gonna lie. It was awkward. At one point my brother leaned over to me and angrily whispered that it was the worst Christmas movie ever to see with the family.

Oh well! I liked it!

And now I’m in New York again! Running off of two hours of sleep! Getting ready to free-base some coffee! Hooray!

And for the most part I’m done with holiday parties, but I have one more to go and I’m shopped out.

If you still have some more parties to go and are shopped out like I am, I have a solution! Pretzel wands. It’s another Disneyland treat, but they’re so perfect and fun, and if you plop ‘em in a cellophane bag and tie a ribbon around it, you have a present anyone will love!

Experiment with different decorations too! Kat and I just pulled out whatever we thought would be good from the cabinets. Totally one of those recipes.

Let’s get to it!

Make sure to click on the orange drop down box at the end of the post for the recipe!

How often do you think about potential future desserts and have a hard time choosing? Do you want a cupcake? Do you want a pie? Do you want them to be combined into one super-dessert?

I’ll go ahead and answer for you. It’s the last one. A cup-pie is a mini pie baked in a cupcake tin. Delicious and adorable.

And not only is it delicious and adorable! I also made it festive! Hooray.

This recipe definitely takes some love and patience (i.e. it’s a total pain in the ass), but at the end you will be left with glorious cup-pies (a concept from one of my favorite shows ‘Pushing Daisies’- seriously one of the best shows ever that was sadly cut short) made from gingerbread and filled with a fresh and light pumpkin spice mousse.

Can’t go wrong, I promise.

*Sidenote- fun fact about today! It’s national cupcake day! BEST DAY EVER after national Nutella day, which takes the lead in my book. You should celebrate by making some of these cup pies! Do it do it do it.

Let’s get our cup-pie on.

Make sure to click on the orange drop down boxes at the end of the post for the recipes!

Somewhere out there in the great wide world there is a woman named Jill Tarves.

Jill, I don’t know you but I already know you’re a genius and you changed my life. Jill, I’m sure you’re as beautiful as you are genius. Jill, if you’re reading this I hope you’re not too creeped out. Hopefully just the right amount. Jill, I think I’ve written your name a few too many times in this post for either of us to be comfortable with.

Here’s the deal, everyone else who is reading this and is probably just as creeped out as Jill, I used to be bound by what I believed were the laws of banana bread. The over-riding law of banana bread goes something like this: the riper the better. Wait and wait and wait until your bananas have turned brown and then they will be perfect for baking.

Well, I should come clean. On my long long list of vices, somewhere close to creepy, complete and utter impatience is near the top.

Then one day I was given a secret and magical tip by my housemate’s boss’ wife and it was one of the happiest baking breakthroughs I’ve ever had. And although ‘baking breakthrough’ is a pretty specific event, out of the few I’ve had, this one is a doozy. I guess you’ll just have to read on to discover what it is.

Also, remember that surprise post that I published yesterday? Well now would be the perfect time to bust out that salted caramel sauce, because you’re going to have some serious drizzling to do.

Let’s get to it.

Make sure to click on the orange drop down box at the end of the post for the recipe!

Congratulations! You just stumbled upon a surprise post. The best part about this post is that it prepares you for tomorrows post. Also the other best part of this post is that there’s a recipe for delicious salted caramel sauce at the end of all those pretty pictures and awkward ramblings.

I’ll confess I cheated a little when making this sauce. I saw recipes that called for unsalted butter and then adding salt later and I thought to myself “well that’s kind of dumb, why not just use salted butter and be done with it?” so that’s what I did.

It takes a little patience and thorough prep-work but once it gets going it’s a super quick process which yields incredible results.

Plus it’s waaaay cheaper than buying caramel with an unreadable ingredients list at the store. It’s perfect for drizzling on ice cream, adding a spoonful to your coffee, or dunking apples, but my personal favorite way to enjoy is coming up in tomorrow’s post, so stay tuned!! Let’s get started, shall we?

Make sure to click on the orange drop down box at the end of the post for the recipe!

So like I said in my previous post it’s not that I was slacking last week, it’s that I was just a touch busy tearing it up at the HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH. And boy is it ever. I love Disneyland. I don’t know how to put into words how MUCH I love Disneyland. And I don’t care about anybody’s lectures of consumerism/ crying children/ blahblahblah. They’re wrong.

I. Love. Disneyland. Crying kids and all. I’m convinced they’re only crying because they’re so happy. So happy to be riding rides and stuffed with treats all day.

And like I said in my last post, my favorite Disneyland treat lives in Pooh’s Corner, a candy store in Critter Country right by the exit of the Winnie the Pooh ride. It’s the Peanut Butter Sandwich and it’s pure bliss. Chocolate-dipped graham cracker smothered in peanut butter and given a second bath in delicious chocolate to cover the whole thing.

I didn’t get one this go-around because it was painfully hot, but when I got back to San Francisco it was noticeably cooler and I desperately wanted one. Longed for one. Needed one.

So of course I decided to make them. But as you lovely readers could have probably guessed by now, I couldn’t just do the run-of-the-mill peanut butter sandwich. It needed a twist, and a can of pumpkin gave me the bright idea to make this treat a little more festive.

It was a definite leap in the dark, so I only did half of my sandwiches with the pumpkin frosting, but after tasting there is no doubt that I would cover the entire batch if I could go back again. It was delicious beyond delicious, a huge crowd pleaser and incredibly easy. Let’s get to it!

Make sure to click on the orange drop down boxes at the end of the post for the recipes!

Like many of my life ventures, a couple years ago a culinary curiosity was piqued by a Disney movie. ”The Princess and the Frog” puts beignets on display in such a way that I couldn’t help myself. I needed to try one of the french doughnut squares, fried and rolled in powdered sugar. And then once I had one, I of course needed another. And another. And another.

By now I’ve made beignets more times than I can count. My friends, knowing it to be a specialty of mine, often request it. I kept making them, but they needed tweaking of some kind. Fried dough? Yes. Rolled in powdered sugar? Delicious. How could it possibly improve you ask? Very much like improving anything else: add bacon.

And what better to compliment the warm, salty/sweet bacon-y fried square of dreams than a cool, creamy and light maple mousse.

Make sure to click on the orange drop down recipes boxes labeled “Maple Mouse” and “Bacon Beignets” at the end of the post!